Stellaris Dev Diary #194: Intel

[xor]

omg I'm so excited! This all looks really intriguing and I can't wait to see how it all ties in with REDACTED.

There is only one thing I'm a bit torn about: Please be careful that losing intel or stale intel or whatever exactly will happen doesn't get too annoying. I can easily imagine that mechanic getting very annoying for the player to stay on top of all those things or that it leads to more micro etc. I don't want to have to click the same buttons over and over here and there every few ingame months just to keep knowing what I already know.
I hope you know what I mean but I trust you to get it just exactly right.

 

[King Harkinian]

This sounds really interesting. I assume things like the score breakdown will be obfuscated as well - currently that's a way to get extremely precise information about every empire when you know how the scoring works.

I hope there will be some more nuanced diplomacy coming with this patch as well though. Things like combining resource trades with diplomatic deals - we should be able to get a research agreement with a superior empire by paying them resources as part of the deal, for example, or bribe an empire into joining a war. Joining an ongoing war - or leaving one you joined as an ally before the main combatants make peace - should also be a thing. Many of the diplomatic systems are simply way too rigid at present.

 

[OldEnt]

Will intel be tradeable? While this is not necessarily something you'd want with AI empires, it would be useful between human players and for modding purposes (just like trading systems).

 

[Mealya]

In a while. Not "soon".

3.0.0 confirmed for the 15/18/2020 ! (Yup numbers are good)

 

[StellarisFan1]

Will they add sabotage mechanics and fleet disguise to the game? The promised paradox

 

[Calvax]

Really excited for this patch.

Will intel be a thing for the AI too or will it cheat and see all? Whilst the former sounds great I'm a bit worried how well the AI will handle it.

 

[V-Metamorph]

This is an absurd boon to developp the array of weapons available in this game. Please paradox, in the name of everything that is spiritualist.

DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY

this intel system will mean nothing if you know the newly discovered alien use tier 1 kinetic tier 1 laser.
It will also hardly be worth the effort if the Tech/Unity dichotomy remain the way it is.

Espionnage is great, don't get me wrong, but according to me the true bane of stellaris are the lack of engagement in the unity system and the lack of variety in space battles,

 

[Pale Blue]

Hmm, this is a bit unrelated to the main topic, but could Lithoid and Necroid fallen empires maybe keep the fallen empire rooms instead of converting to these? It works for regular empires, but it robs fallen empires of some of their flavor.

Except for fallen empires AI rooms should be random. Currenly the Ai uses the room designed for their personality during first contact. If this stays the case in the new system you will see at a glance that this empire is a purifier or federations builder etc. without intel.

I guess megastructures and gateways will also be hidden by the fog of war?

Will criminal syndicates get something special for the intel game to make them more interesting?

Does the arcane technology ascension perk affect the intel other empires generate on you/you generate on others?

 

[NilsFabian]

The information on the empire to the galactic south-east is very limited. We can see their homeworld and the borders explored by our science ship.

I wouldn't even show the Homeworld or I would tie it into the information policy. If the empire has an open policy you would find an office of the tourism board at the border station. "The Blorg welcome you to the empire what do you want to see"
If an empire is closed the border station should justpost a message, if you move one klick further we will shoot at you and you'd only know that Cofeve is claimed by the Blorg.

Will the Sentry Array reveal all the galaxy (remove Fog of War) or also will contribute to Intel?

I would guess that it would only reveal the empires size and fleets but not be able to tap into the internal empire network.

I hope that the ascension paths will be taken into account also.
You've gone full Genetic, congrats you can pose as one of their own and inflitrate.
Psionics? Just look into the mind.
Machines, hello mr. computer tell me everything.
Depending on your kind of ascension you should be able to defend against these empirse in a rock paper scissors way.

 

[Al Davoodi]

So we can create a romulan empire like empire in Stellaris which tries to be mysterious and tries to hide anything and dealing with that empire can be a huge mess?

 

[LiberiusX]

@grekulf

any chance you could obfuscate fleet power numbers? I.e. any fleets not in a system you control(or have an active fleet in) would have a “range” of fleet power, and size of said range(with the median also offset) would be inverse determined by military intel and sensor level? Low intel would create high uncertainty about enemy fleet strength. Opposite being true.

(could open the door for stealth tech)

or heck, just make fleet power a shifting/unreliable number

 

[Dark_wing]

This looks great! Limited intel, more mystery, I like it!

An idea that could interact in interesting ways with the limited intel system and could create some nice emergent stories (and reduce construction ship micro):

Allow empires to add claims to unoccupied systems as well as systems that seem unoccupied according to the empires' intel.

If two empires claim the same system or an empire claims a system that is owned/claimed by another (with or without knowing about the other's claims), this could trigger a diplomatic incident that could escalate into rivalry or possibly war.

If the system is claimed by an undiscovered empire, the science ship or the construction ship that builds the starbase (I'm not sure what would work better in this case) would initate first contact, and the claim dispute would have an impact on the first contact events.

This could be combined with automated construction ships (tech gated like automated exploration perhaps?) which would automatically attempt to build starbases in systems you have surveyed and claimed, potentially initiating the described mechanic.

 

[Koopa]

does that mean we will also not know if a big name on the map has in the meantime, for example, beeing eaten by a devouring swarm?

 

[Ridixo]

An alien empire recently established communications with us. Friends..?

Yep, sure they are friends. Go colonize a world near them so you can be closer

The Intel idea isn't bad, but i don't know how much good it can be. Don't take me wrong, so far this is good. Getting fragmented info on other empires is what worries me. You need to know things before going to war. Defense treaties, relative power. Not knowing that is part of the Intel game, but also can make you commit mistakes. Hope the Intel systems works and doesn't become a problem that drags the fun of conquering people

On a side note. Anyone else got the sudden urge to buy a processor after reading this DD?

 

[lakrids404]

It could be interesting if the states could project more or less strength in different areas, by setting aside resources for the masquerade(tm).

Then you could have a devious pacifist state , that would want to look weak. So it could have valid reason to conqueror hostile neighbour states.
or
Bullying military states, who demands tribute, but are in reality paper tigers.

 

[Calvax]

The Intel idea isn't bad, but i don't know how much good it can be. Don't take me wrong, so far this is good. Getting fragmented info on other empires is what worries me. You need to know things before going to war. Defense treaties, relative power. Not knowing that is part of the Intel game, but also can make you commit mistakes. Hope the Intel systems works and doesn't become a problem that drags the fun of conquering people

Remains to be seen how it plays but from what we've seen so far if you choose to go to war with bad intel and lose because of it...well that's on you! That's a fun consequence of play and makes the game more strategic. Do you go to war now based on stale intel, do you wait to gather more intel first meaning you might need to decide where to pull assets from (assuming envoys are used for intel reports) etc.

 

[King Harkinian]

It occurred to me - with these changes, we will hopefully be allowed to survey systems in other empires in order to gain intel on them, expanding the usefulness of science ships.

This ties into what I mentioned before about diplomacy - we should be able to ask empires for open borders so we can explore them, and even offer resources in return to sweeten the deal.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

I can see the potential boost to Psionics with this eg, never having Intel go stale, bonuses to Intel gap or gain etc.

I can also see some of the weaker starbase buildings becoming more useful eg. Communication jammer maybe reducing Intel in a system, or blacksites allowing for some espionage stuff.

 

[PaulCl]

In a while. Not "soon".

Our Technology Intel level for the Paradox Conglomerate is rated Low. We need to commission an Intel Report.

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

It occurred to me - with these changes, we will hopefully be allowed to survey systems in other empires in order to gain intel on them, expanding the usefulness of science ships.

This ties into what I mentioned before about diplomacy - we should be able to ask empires for open borders so we can explore them, and even offer resources in return to sweeten the deal.

It was talked about waaay back before Utopia was made, but there were suggestions of having civilian and military border control, so that you could allow some empires in to survey and explore (possibly even build in unclaimed territory) and an option allow fleets. You can allow one or the other, both or neither.